David A Smith - Sign Artist

David A Smith is a name that has become synonymous in Sign-Writing and Glass gilding circles, with high quality, hand crafted reverse glass signs and decorative silvered and gilded mirrors.

In this short documentary, we reveal behind the scenes work, techniques and visions that Dave uses when carrying out his passion as a glass embosser – One of the few remaining traditional UK glass artists.

David A Smith - Elaborate Victorian Style Mirror

This is one of two mirrors recently completed. The mirrors were hand made using the traditional embossing and brilliant cutting techniques from over 100 years ago.

The Making of John Mayer’s ‘Born & Raised’ Artwork

David recently produced a wonderful turn-of-the-century, trade-card styled album cover for popular American singer/songwriter John Mayer.

This film captures the ‘Behind The Scenes’ creation of the ‘Born & Raised’ and ‘Queen of California’ artwork, as well as 2 unique reverse glass panels, hand-crafted in England by David A. Smith.

The Making of Kings of Leon ‘Beautiful War’ Artwork

Captured over a period of 6 days and made up of over 300GB’s of still photographs, this short film showcases David’s hand-rendered illustration of the ‘Kings of Leon’, ‘Beautiful War’ single cover.

David A. Smith - Morris Minor

An old Morris Minor Traveller, traditionally hand-painted in 2004. This film depicts the work of David A. Smith featuring hand-carvings, gilded glass artwork and sign-writing.

David A. Smith - Jameson Irish Whiskey

The making of a gin bottle inspired by the golden age of gin. We follow David A. Smith as he reflects the beautiful gilded decorative mirrors from gin palaces of old in the newly designed Booth’s bottle, created by Design Bridge. Ornamental, original and obsessive about detail, this is craft and creativity at its glorious best.

Booth’s - the golden gin inspired by gin’s golden age

Introducing the golden gin inspired by gin’s golden age. This is Booth’s – centuries of history revived for a new generation. With echoes of an illustrious past, our newly designed bottle glows with the beautiful ornamental work of collaborator David A Smith and reflections of gin’s glory days.

Private Stock Super Eagle w/ John Mayer | PRS Guitars

The Private Stock “Super Eagle” is the result of a very close collaboration between Paul Reed Smith and Grammy-winning musician John Mayer. Some of the more distinctive and personalized specifications Mayer and Smith decided on for this special run of instruments include a longer (for PRS) scale length of 25.375”, specially-wound 58/15 JM treble and bass pickups with a specially-wound Narrowfield JM pickup in the middle position (with three individual coil-tap mini-switches), a JCF Audio preamp with treble boost, as well as a hand-signed sticker in the f-hole of the guitar that was designed by Mayer’s friend David Smith (who also designed the cover art for Mayer’s 2012 Born and Raised album).

The Backbone of Britain

Last year we traveled from the Outer Hebrides to the tip of Cornwall meeting UK makers, producers and manufacturers. When we met them we asked them all the same question… why do you do what you do?

We took film-maker Matt Roberts of Truck Films with us to document the trip, watch the short film of our journey.